The Journalist Jack Morse of Mashable reports the inexplicable hacking entity, the Shadow Brokers, publicized a dossier containing National Security Agency’s (NSA) arsenal of software penetration techniques on 14th April 2017, just before the computing began observing the Easter holiday.

The release contains about 300 megabytes of data the group stole from the NSA. The contents include different hacking tools capable of compromising most versions of the popular Microsoft Windows operating system. In fact, any person using a version released before Windows 10, or even the most recent Windows version, could be prone to attacks.

Shadow Brokers circulated the details of the leak online, effectively placing cyber weapons on the hands of any hacker who wants to penetrate Windows-powered machines.

Within a short period of time, a hacker can download the simple toolkit, which is publicly accessible, and penetrate any computer running on the Windows operating system from anywhere in the world. This is serious. Worse still, the toolkit is extremely dangerous and troublesome because it utilizes several zero-day exploits. This implies that there could be no existing defense because the vulnerabilities had not been patched.

On its part, Microsoft announced it had previously taken drastic steps to safeguard customers. The company asserted it had patched the exploits earlier in the year, implying it could have got some clues on the impending leak.

Anyway, the Shadow Brokers’ leak further enforces the significance of users to be vigilant about their security. Keeping a system updated with up-to-date patches is no longer an option, but a mandatory obligation for every security-conscious computer user.